English has very few words of more than one syllable without a consonant, apart from proper names such as Aeaea, Aiea, Aia, Io, Eiao, Oea, and sometimes Iowa (below), and perhaps a few taxonomic terms such as Iouea below.
- The maned sloth, or ai, is pronounced with two syllables: .
- Aa, a type of lava, is spelled without consonants, but is pronounced with a glottal stop, which is marginal in English: .
- The aye-aye, a type of lemur:
- Euouae, a musical cadence taken from the vowels in the hymn Gloria Patri doxology: “seculorum Amen”, is the longest English word spelled without any consonant letters; it is also the English word with the most consecutive vowels. However, it is also pronounced with an initial consonant: . Euoi, an interjection expressing Bacchic frenzy, is similar.
- Iouea, , or without consonant pronunciation, .
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